The History of the Opening Sequence

Tuesday 25th September

Humble Beginnings:

In silent cinema, the opening sequence was simply made up of titles; these titles though played an important role in films of that period. Filmmakers needed a way to convey information about the film to an audience. The first 'title sequences' were born.

Pioneering filmmaker DW Griffith shows early examples of the title sequence

Development of Titling:

Film studios began to employ typecasts to produce specialized print cards and over time, animated titles came into use, slowly resulting in more elaborate and complex sequences engineered by ambitious animators.

A modern example of the development of animated title sequences from the 2006 film '300'

The Birth of the Opening Sequence

Filmmakers began to use titling techniques in correlation with an introductory scene to a film. Titles conveyed information about the production of the film, while the opening scene they were layered over established key characters, events, and context to the film. In recent years opening sequences have become more ambitious and expensive, an example of this is Batman: The Dark Knight; the opening sequence to which is an explosive, heart-pounding and blockbuster action sequence.